Sometimes you just need to reboot or shut down right away-and we mean right away, with no waiting. Thankfully, whether your Mac is frozen and non-responsive or you just want to shut down and go home right now, there's a keyboard shortcut that gets the job done.

If you need to reboot and you don't feel like shutting down your apps one by one or waiting for Mac OS to walk you through them, press Ctrl+Cmd+Eject to reboot your Mac immediately, with no alerts or warning dialogs. If you need to shut down and run out the door, press Ctrl+Opt+Cmd+Eject to shut down immediately, also without alerts or warning dialogs. Be careful using these commands though: you won't be prompted to save your work or review your open apps first.

You can also press Ctrl+Eject (or press the power button) to bring up the power management menu and select whether you want to reboot, shut down, sleep, or do nothing. Before you use any of these commands though, remember you can always press Cmd+Opt+Shift+Esc to force-quit the front-most application if that's what's making you want to reboot. Photo by Michael Napoleon.

Shortcut of the Day highlights a great shortcut on various platforms from the desktop to mobile devices to the web. You can find more shortcuts here.